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Urban Financial Etiquette June 27, 2006

Want to be a socially responsible financial etiquette friend? The Urban Etiquette Handbook article, in the June 26, 2006 issue of New York Magazine has some great rules for getting along with everyone in New York. There are some personal finance related ones as well (along with my take on them):

Who pays the bill on a date?
The asker pays, unless the woman does the asking—then the man should pay. If the check’s on the table and her suitor hasn’t moved for it, a woman should allow him a one-bathroom-trip grace period. If it’s still there when she comes back, she should split the bill but is entirely free to silently ruminate about what a cheap jerk he is. (For same-sex couples, the asker really does pay.)

I’m somewhat of a traditional person, so I agree with this one. The man should always pay. However, the woman should always offer to pay, as a courtesy. Men, if a woman offers to pay, never accept her offer.

Should the wealthier half of a friendship be expected to give more-expensive gifts?
In an ideal world, no. But in the real world, yeah, pretty much. A rule of thumb: Give according to your means, not the recipient’s. If you’re the richer friend, your impoverished friends will appreciate your generosity infinitely more than a cheap trinket you purchased so as not to embarrass them. If you’re the poorer friend—and you’re worried about being outclassed—get together with other friends of lesser means to pool resources on an item of greater value. Better still, spend extra effort on a thoughtful but nevertheless affordable gift that shows you’ve actually paid attention to your friends’ most obscure tastes and interests.

I’m not sure if I agree with this one. The less wealthy friend shouldn’t expect anything from the wealthy friend. If you’re close friends, both sides will offer friendship, not tangible items, right?

How do you pick restaurants and other social activities in circles that involve widely varying incomes?
Inviting the whole gang over for dinner solves some problems—the poor people won’t have to choose between missing a credit card payment or being treated, and the richer folk get a nice meal if you’re a generally decent cook. Of course, it creates an altogether new problem: In your sensitivity to everyone’s income issues, you alone wind up underwriting the entire evening. That’s fine some of the time, but for another alternative, choose an under-the-radar, inexpensive restaurant where everyone will feel cutting-edge— self-congratulatory hipsterdom knows no class boundaries.

I’ve been guilty of paying for my friends once in a while for no apparant reason, but it’s been a while since I’ve done that. I payed for thanking my friends for helping me move recently, that’s another story. There are plenty of affordable but hip restaurants, even in Manhattan.

What’s the best way to split the check in a group?
At a group meal, an equal split should be the baseline expectation: It falls to those who ordered more-expensive dishes to offer to pay more, not to others to pay less. Failure to partake in the appetizers or the wine can be cited as a reason to cut one’s contribution only if there was some socially sanctioned reason for declining (veganism, Islam, pregnancy). If you just got the soup and you don’t think that’s fair, well, think about whether it’s “fair” to make your friends eat dinner with a buzz-killing cheapskate.

This one’s a pet peeve of mine. I’ve witnessed too many times when a friend of a friend joins in a dinner and leaves less than they owe. On top of that, they duck out early hoping that no one will notice! If you’re among friends, it’s ok to do that as long as you acknowledege that you’re short $10 or something. My philosophy is that it eventually evens out among friends.

So do you have any other financial etiquette rules? Do you agree with the NY Mag’s etiquette rules?

Source:
The Urban Etiquette Handbook, from New York Magazine

Comments»

1. Medicated Money - June 27, 2006

Commenting on the last item, my personal feeling in splitting a check is if everyone order roughly the same items (ie drinks, app, dinner, and desert), the best way to do it is to just split the check evenly across the board as well. It is truly the simplest and easiest way to do it! Nothing kills a good conversation or story with whipping out the calculators and adding each individual item! Whether you are paying a little more or a little less, with friends, everything comes out in the wash!